RTC – AGRONOMY TRAINING PROGRAM

Falcon’s sister company – Rwanda Trading Company – was established in 2009 as a vehicle for positive social impact, and remains committed to securing economic freedom and security for smallholder farmers by building resilient, transparent supply chains.

Like ourselves, RTC believe that profitable and ethical business go hand in hand. Their model is built on trust and communication. From the outset, they have established partnerships with farmers to help them in the field and to work with them to create stability and mitigate risk.

RTC focus on quality and invest in production, offering financial literacy, agribusiness management and agronomy training programs to increase yield and keep them operational, profitable and healthy. At the RTC dry mill in Kigali, which employs 160 full-time, and 250 seasonal employees, they also oversee the milling, processing and quality control for approximately 15% of Rwanda’s total coffee exports, and provide access to the futures market to secure the best prices for farmers.

In 2013, Rwanda Trading Company embarked on a long-term agronomy project in the Bugasera District of Rwanda’s Eastern Province. The aim was to improve quality, yield and farmer income from coffee crops. As of 2015, the programme’s successes included a 155% yield increase amongst the farmer group of 300 farmers. Deliveries to the Shyara Mountain washing station increased by 148% in less than 3 years, and quality, based on the SCAA cup scoring system, rose by an average of 4 points to 83 and above. Some of the washing stations now produce coffees that score up to 90 points.

The programme continues and has since been rolled out in other areas of the country, as well as via another of our sister companies – Tembo Coffee – in Tanzania.